Poem 163

A premonition of loss, man and magpie soon to be solo …

… this was handwritten in 1984, my Original Composition year when I was trying to write two poems a day … the fact that it’s not typed means it was probably written on the move, maybe up at the university …

( I like the way this achieves depth and drama out of the everyday, disturbing dream and intuition, the daylight and nighttime worlds – and the way the last sad image (the seeds the notes of the sorrowful song) draws it all together without any quardle ardle doodle about it … )

The Magpie’s Song

The old man seemed to lean back
on his walking stick like the reins 
of a horse he was trying to pull up short
of the wire netting fence

behind on the playing field
two magpies traded him stare
for stare
               one ragged puffed up
and sick-looking the other patrolling 
giving the old man a look like
I'll open your scalp up

it was a scene of interest
a plane wiped itself over an inch of sky
I drove past
the man finished looking at the sick magpie
and the angry magpie and walked home
to tell his wife about it
over lunch

she doesn't like magpies
they chased her when she was small
and now tonight
she is dreaming her mother
has baked her a loaf of bread
but she cuts it too early
and the crust gives way
bursting in a snarl of magpies
that snap into her face

she blames it on her husband
and tells him so
he doesn't say he has dreamed too
of a pine tree
a dark lump at its tip
like a sorrowful cone
letting down seeds